Do Business Well

Flooded with trillions of trivial pieces of information, millions of 4 human minds are now as saturated as any swamp. Junk mail fills mailboxes; magazines stuffed with ads run as long as five hundred pages and can weigh as much as a newborn baby. Advertisers stamp their logos on every conceivable surface, from cruising blimps and ski-lift towers to e-mail screens and bus roofs. Some television markets offer two hundred cable channels. An Internet surfer discovers a Milky Way of random data, much of it conflicting and some of it stupefying. Continue Reading »

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When customers lack the time to buy or use things, suppliers lack customers. Of all the new realities, this may be the most important. Time is no longer just money. Time is life itself. In a highspeed era bristling with demands around the clock, the daily puzzle is, how much time can anyone commit to any particular task? Ergo, customer scarcity is often caused by time scarcity.

As managers see it, their challenge isn’t creating products, services, information, or innovation. Rather, it is finding ways to get customers to select from, to process, and to digest the abundance of supply. The hardest part may be the first step—to cut through the clutter to get customers‘ attention and stay on their shortlist. Continue Reading »

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Managers at Ford Motor chose Siebel to provide essential software for a call center that links Ford, its dealers, and its business partners. They report that the reliable Siebel team makes sure that everyone at Ford who needs to understand and feel comfortable with the software does so. The call center’s chief says that if he were really unhappy, he could call Tom Siebel anytime, “and he’d take care of it.” Other customers are just as happy. Lodging giant Marriott International Inc. has used Siebel software for several elaborate programs and finds that Siebel people are always a step ahead of Marriott’s five-year plan. Siebel’s mantra, says a Marriott executive, is “How does what we do help your business?”

For new market leaders, such as Solectron and Siebel Systems, it is not sufficient to fill their customers‘ orders. They are committed to their customers‘ success, determined that the products or services they sell will bring the results that their customers need. There is an old marketing chestnut worth repeating: Customers don’t buy drills, they buy holes. It is results that count. If there is a better way than yours for your customer to get the results she wants, don’t wait for her to find it; show her, and find a way to provide it. Continue Reading »

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Spotting a new market leader is no more complicated than walking a company’s hallways or observing its managers asthey work: Do they know who their priority customers are? Are they aware of what this group really wants? Do they stay focused on offering these customers the best value, year after year? And from top to bottom of the company, is the desire and determination to be the company that sets the standards in the marketplace palpable? Ultimately, what proves a market leader is the preoccupation with the fact that the business rests firmly on two pillars— customers and focus. Diminish either and the business flounders. Continue Reading »

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